No Sigh, No Trust, Only Caution and Preparation at Ladakh as India Digs in for a Long Haul
There is no sigh of relief as the Indians and the Chinese troops disengage at multiple points of contention at the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, but only a cautious watch as both the security establishment and independent analysts remain wary of the Chinese commitment and some question the Indian gains from the exercise, The Dispatch has come to understand in interviews with Indian strategic analysts and an assessment of publicly known developments.
As per the ongoing disengagement, the Indian and Chinese troops have mutually pulled back along the de facto border, forming a buffer zone between them and putting in place a patrolling moratorium for 30 days to avoid any confrontation and let negotiations pave the way ahead. Beginning from the Galwan Valley’s Patrolling Point 14, at the time of writing this story, the disengagement had expanded to Hot Springs-Gogra area and to some extent to the Pangong Lake’s Fingers area as well.
The Fingers area refers to the northern bank of Pangong Lake where there are a number of mountains that jut forward into the lake in major spurs. These spurs are called “fingers” in military parlance. There are eight such fingers and the Indian territorial claim is eastward till Finger 8, even though the physical control extends up to only Finger 4. The Chinese territorial claim is westward till Finger 2 — making the area between Fingers 2 and 8 contentious.
At Galwan Valley, both the sides have withdrawn to up to 2.5–3 kilometers from PP-14. It has been learnt that both the sides have one tent-post with 30 personnel at around 1.4–1.8 kilometers from where they clashed on 15–16 June and another tent-post a further kilometer back with 50 personnel. This has prompted concerns in some quarters that such a pull-back would take the Indians right up to the confluence of the Galwan and Shyok rivers, positioning them as per the present Chinese claim — the Chinese have now amended their previous claim and have stated that their territory extends till the two rivers’ confluence.
Abhijit Iyer Mitra, a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, however, said that is not the case. As per him, the Galwan-Shyok confluence is well behind the Indian positions.
He told The Dispatch, “India has not pulled back to the Galwan-Shyok confluence. We have pulled back 1.5 kilometers west from PP-14 and the Chinese 1.5 kilometers south. The confluence is a further 3.5 kilometers west from where we have pulled back to.”
He also called the comments on the patrolling moratorium ill-informed. “The 30-days suspension of patrolling is just how it is. People making these comments lack an understanding and experience of international peacekeeping and cartographic claims,” said Iyer Mitra.
Similar arrangements have been made at the Hot Spring-Gogra area (PP-17 and PP-17A) where the Indian and Chinese troops have moved back in reciprocation. There has been some degree of disengagement at Pangong Lake’s Fingers area too but, by the time this story was written, the Chinese were still occupying the heights at Finger 4 — even as they have thinned their presence at Finger 4’s base by removing some structures. The Indians have pulled back to Finger 3 and the Chinese personnel on ground have also made some movement towards Finger 5 but it is not being called a disengagement as of now.
In the absence of physical patrolling, the verification of the Chinese implementation of the pull-back is being done through drones and satellite imagery. There are indications that the government is procuring private satellite images to augment their satellite coverage. While some has understood this as signs of limitations of Indian drones and satellite surveillance, experts The Dispatch consulted called it routine.
One analyst suggested, requesting anonymity, “Every country ropes in the private sector to beef up their resources and to get more eyes on the theatre. It is perfectly routine and it does not mean that the government’s own satellites are compromised.”
Iyer Mitra said it again highlighted a lack of understanding. He told The Dispatch, “Reconnaissance from both the satellites and drones is extremely effective and it is an internationally accepted standard of verification. Most of the surveillance is done through satellites whose only vulnerability is cloud-cover. This gap is filled in by drones.” Responding to skepticism over drones, he said, “Drones are like any military aircraft that can fly in extremely challenging conditions.”
In the absence of official statements on the extent of disengagement or the progress of negotiations except for foreign ministry statements that more or less repeat same claims and do not offer clarity on the situation on the ground, the reporting and commentary on the developments is largely source-based and based on independent satellite imagery analysis. The statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi that there has been no intrusion and the subsequent aggressive Chinese tone has led to comments that the government has effectively accepted the Chinese advances. There has been commentary that the nature of pull-back has led the military to be particularly wary about prospects of territorial loss.
Anit Mukherjee, an assistant professor at S Rajaratnam School of International Studies and an expert on India’s civil-military relations, said such a commentary is premature. “I think it is still early to say that India has ceded territory, but the development needs to be carefully watched,” said Mukherjee.
He added, “I am sure though that both the political class and the military would be wary of losing territory.”
The Indian security establishment is further suspicious of the Chinese honouring the disengagement agreement. The two sides had disengaged in June as well and yet there was a deadly clash in which 20 Indian and an unspecified number of Chinese personnel were killed.
During the Kargil War in 1999, when the Indian troops were diverted towards the Pakistan-front, the Chinese built a track up to Finger 4 that they later blacktopped, increasing their access and domination of Fingers 8–4. Yet the Indians would patrol up to Finger 8 and claim the territory till there — even as the physical control only existed till Finger 4. Now the Chinese have turned their access and domination of Fingers 8–4 into full-fledged control by occupying close to 50 square kilometers of India-claimed territory and building hard structures, including bunkers, pill-boxes and defensive walls on heights overlooking Indian positions below, and even a helipad.
Highlighting the gravity of the situation, Iyer Mitra said this is the time to watch the developments very closely.
He told The Dispatch, “I think the Chinese will stick to the disengagement agreement for a few weeks or months, but now is the period of greatest danger. I do expect the Chinese to do something soon.”
About the deescalation that is supposed to follow the successful disengagement, he said, “I’m not seeing any deescalation at Pangong at all and that is mostly because the Chinese have built solid infrastructure there right up to Finger 4. This has been going on from way back in 1999 [Kargil War]. For all effects and purposes, the area (Fingers 4–8) has been under their control since then.”
Despite the public attention at the Galwan Valley following the 15–16 June clash, the Indian security establishment’s main concern had always been the Pangong Lake where the Chinese have built upon their past gains to solidify their territorial claim.
It has recently been learnt that the Chinese aggression has also changed the status quo in Depsang area. The Quint’s Nishtha Gautam broke the story that Indian patrols in Depsang area have been restrained since March from going beyond a point called “Y Junction — Bottleneck” in order to avoid a confrontation with the Chinese. The “Y Junction — Bottleneck” is 17 kilometers west of the Indian perception of the LAC. In other words, since March, the Indians have remained at least 17 kilometers behind their claim because of the Chinese advances. Also, this point of contention is barely 30 kilometers south of India’s strategically important Daulat Beg Oldie airbase.
It had previously been believed that the ongoing tensions were rooted in April but the restraining of Indian patrols since March suggests there is more to the story.
Understandably, it is believed that the Pangong Lake and the Depsang area will be the focal point of next meeting between the Indian and Chinese area commanders, believed to be scheduled sometime this week.
Even as some comments by the Chinese may look conciliatory and the ongoing disengagement may give hope, the Chinese actions on ground have not changed much. The Chinese have signaled that they are up for trouble beyond Ladakh as well. Praveen Swami has reported for Network18 that the Chinese have been detected in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh in late June. The Indian agencies have detected their presence from satellite phone’s usage — which is intentional at the Chinese end as they want the Indians to know that they are there.
Swami quoted an intelligence official as saying: “The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] knows perfectly well that we listen-in to their communications. These Thuraya satellite phone calls are basically their way of telling us: ‘Look, we’re here’.”
There is also a complete loss of trust in the Chinese. The previous agreements, confidence-building measures, and understandings at the local level are dead and buried. The 15–16 June clash was the final nail in the coffin. Shiv Aroor has reported, “Trust of the Chinese has never been lower. It’s matched only by the trust levels in the sixties. Zero trust in words or even limited actions. Army and air force are in operational readiness.”
The Indian security establishment seems to have recognised that the Chinese are very much in the mood of upping the ante if they feel the need to and that the de facto border may very well become a hot border — akin to one with Pakistan, even if gunfire is not exchanged every other day.
The disengagement is being seen as a stop-gap measure that has a very real possibility of not working out. Much hope is not being pinned on it. The army is preparing for a long haul in Ladakh, stocking up supplies and working towards keeping lines of communication open through the winter. The 13 passes that the army recognises as having a potential of enabling a Chinese thrust into Ladakh are being defended. The most potent of such areas — the Depsang area — is already compromised where the Indians have been pushed back by at least 17 kilometers, as Gautam reported for The Quint.
It is not just the army that is bracing itself. The air force is also in the fray with a critical role. While the asymmetry between the Indian and Chinese capacities is well known, the two sides are somewhat-matched in Ladakh and the Indians even have an edge in some spheres: most notably in the skies.
In an earlier conversation, Iyer Mitra told this writer: “The correct response to China is an air-centric response as our fighter planes operating from the much lower altitudes of the Indo-Gangetic plains have a significant advantage over the Chinese fighters operating off the 15,000 feet at the Tibetan plateau.”
Similarly, in the Galwan Valley, the Indians are better-placed. Iyer Mitra told The Dispatch, “Indian supply lines to PP-14 are much closer at five kilometers to air-supply than the Chinese at 44 kilometers. So we do have an advantage there.”
As for the future trajectory, the only consensus seems to be there that it will not be the same again. The most crucial takeaway is for the Indian strategic planners, as per Mukherjee. He said, “I am not comfortable with taking guesses about the future. All that I will say is that this crisis has seemingly not yet passed and that it should be a wake-up call to the Indian strategic community — if ever one was needed.”
Iyer Mitra, who said he does not see the Chinese deescalating at the Pangong Lake, as they have already solidified their occupation there, adds it is getting difficult to understand the Chinese actions. He said, “I have never understood the Chinese obsession with bits of land that carries disproportionately negative consequences to their diplomacy with India as whole.” About the cause of the Chinese aggression, he said, “The issue is that China has historically never needed a reason. We thought they were tempering down post Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. Clearly, they are not.”
One can argue that India has not lost any territory as Fingers 4–8 were never in Indian control in the first place, but one cannot argue that China has not gained anything. They have extended their territorial control westward by around 50 square kilometers to include the area between Fingers 8–4. This counts as a change in status quo that the Indians may not be able to reverse and may have to live with.
There seems to be no way other than a major military action that can make the Chinese leave Fingers 4–8. This does not seem to be on the cards for now but it will be too much to make a loud prediction for future at this point. The only other way the Chinese may leave the territory is that they do it on their own. This does not seem to be the case either, as, Iyer Mitra said, no deescalation can be seen at Pangong as the Chinese have established their hold with solid infrastructure.
Madhur Sharma is a Delhi-based journalist. His writings have appeared in publications such as The Kootneeti, ThePrint, The Quint, Newslaundry, and Swarajya. He tweets @madhur_mrt.
Photographs/visuals in the story belong to their respective owners and may not be used without their permission.
